color of the paint. Joshua Pye, when thus animadverted upon, retorted that the
Avonlea taste in colors was no business of his, whatever his private opinion
might be; he had been hired to paint the hall, not to talk about it; and he meant to
have his money for it.
The Improvers paid him his money in bitterness of spirit, after consulting Mr.
Peter Sloane, who was a magistrate.
“You’ll have to pay it,” Peter told him. “You can’t hold him responsible for
the mistake, since he claims he was never told what the color was supposed to be
but just given the cans and told to go ahead. But it’s a burning shame and that
hall certainly does look awful.”
The luckless Improvers expected that Avonlea would be more prejudiced than
ever against them; but instead, public sympathy veered around in their favor.
People thought the eager, enthusiastic little band who had worked so hard for
their object had been badly used. Mrs. Lynde told them to keep on and show the
Pyes that there really were people in the world who could do things without
making a muddle of them. Mr. Major Spencer sent them word that he would
clean out all the stumps along the road front of his farm and seed it down with
grass at his own expense; and Mrs. Hiram Sloane called at the school one day
and beckoned Anne mysteriously out into the porch to tell her that if the
“Sassiety” wanted to make a geranium bed at the crossroads in the spring they
needn’t be afraid of her cow, for she would see that the marauding animal was
kept within safe bounds. Even Mr. Harrison chuckled, if he chuckled at all, in
private, and was all sympathy outwardly.
“Never mind, Anne. Most paints fade uglier every year but that blue is as ugly
as it can be to begin with, so it’s bound to fade prettier. And the roof is shingled
and painted all right. Folks will be able to sit in the hall after this without being
leaked on. You’ve accomplished so much anyhow.”
“But Avonlea’s blue hall will be a byword in all the neighboring settlements
from this time out,” said Anne bitterly.
And it must be confessed that it was.